In That Moment
by xoYanaaa
Summary: An injured Wally and a guilty Artemis.
**A/N: So. Yesterday I read a Spitfire fanfic and it was so amazing so I read another few of their spitfire stories and I** _ **loved**_ **them. So that night, I was woken up by a monstrous thunder storm and I was laying away and then BOOM this idea hit me and hasn't left since. So now I'm writing this oneshot when I'm supposed to be taking a math quiz and other work and updating my other stories, but it just** _ **won't leave**_ **and I physically can't stop myself from writing this.**

 **I had no idea it was going to turn out this long (it's not that long, pretty short I guess, but it's the second longest one-shot I've ever written) and didn't like the way it did at all. The idea I had in my head isn't the way this turned out. But when is it ever? Sigh.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoy this and if you did, you can leave a review. Or fav. Whatever floats your boat.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

Artemis was _exhausted._

She felt her muscles grow even more tired and weak as she reached behind her back and pulled out another arrow. Which was running very low. Sighing in frustration, she ditched the arrow and used a powerful roundhouse to kick the enemy's ass back to where it came from. With a grunt, her leg came in contact with the enemy's side and it howled in pain, stepping back. She immediately kicked it again, and it lay still after that.

With a tired sigh, she surveyed the warehouse. Superboy was throwing one of the enemies like a rag doll and it collided with three more, knocking them all down. Aqualad was slicing their limbs off one by one in a straight line and watched as five enemies fell at his feet. Megan was in the air, using her telekinesis to slam some into the wall. Robin was flipping over the heads of a few enemies and using his stick to knock them up, wincing as he heard all of their wails. Wally was going against one enemy who had a sharp, long stick and using his super speed to dodge his attacks.

Artemis looked ahead of her and saw two enemies advancing to her. With a growl, she quickly pulled out an arrow and shot it between the eyes, penetrating him and the other that was behind him at the same time.

Normally, she wouldn't be so tired just going against these amateur alien creatures. Defeating creatures that look like they've never witnessed or have been anything like a battle before? Piece of cake. But doing that for the _third time_ that day? Not so much. Her lungs burned from running so much, her arms ached from shooting arrows all day, and her leg muscles ached _and_ burned and she was tired and just wanted to sleep and—

She was on her last arrow.

Artemis cursed under her breath as she pulled out her last, precious one and looked around to see who will be her last victim. As her eyes roamed the abandoned factory, she heard Aqualad's yell.

"Kid Flash! 6 o'clock!"

She whipped her head around and saw the creature with the sword Wally was fighting was advancing behind him, who was too busy fighting another one.

"6 o'clock!" Aqualad yelled again, beginning to run.

"Behind you!" Artemis yelled, quickly pulling out her last arrow and aiming it towards the creature's head. As he drew nearer and nearer to Wally, her breaths became quicker and shorter as tried to aim. Her fingers involuntary fumbled against each other and she realized she was _shaking_ because she knew if she missed this, he would die. Wally would die. She didn't know what she would do if he did, and wasn't planning on finding out.

The creature was advancing on Wally, aiming its sword and Artemis stopped breathing. As she let go, her arm jerked from tiredness and fear and shaking too much and…it whizzed by the creature's head by a few centimeters. She missed. By a few centimeters, she missed.

Wally turned around and his mouth fell open. He was going to super speed away, but it was too late. The creature shoved his sword into Wally's stomach until the end came out the other way. Wally's eyes popped out of his head from shock and fear and pain and looked down at the sword that had just impaled him. He let out an agonizing cry and fell to his knees, gripping the sword that now turned red.

"WALLY!" Megan cried, flying over and slamming the creature into a wall. Twice. It fell to the ground with a monstrous groan.

She missed.

Artemis stopped breathing. She watched as Wally rolled onto his back, groaning, and clutching his stomach that was oozing blood for dear life. She watched as his face twisted in pain and fear. She watched as he was dying before her eyes.

She _missed._

Her legs were moving without her telling them too, and she didn't even notice until she was stepping into the puddle of his blood. She didn't care that her green and black suit was now becoming red and black. She didn't care that her limbs felt like they were going to fall off as she lifted Wally's head gently.

His emerald green eyes opened and looked back into hers. They were wide and swimming with fear and pain.

"Wally, you're going to be okay," Artemis told him, holding his gaze. "Just…just hold on, okay?"

He said nothing. He blinked once…twice…and the third time, he didn't open his eyes again. Superboy picked him up and they all ran out to get to the ship.

The ride was silent. No one dared to speak a word the whole ride. Megan was sniffling to herself as she piloted her ship, Robin had his hands on his head, Superboy and Aqualad were trying their hardest to show no emotion whatsoever, and Artemis was silently degrading herself. She thought if she had just aimed a little more to the left, and wasn't so careless and stupid and dumb and scared Wally wouldn't be laying there fighting for his life right now. If she had just _aimed correctly_ they wouldn't be in this mess right now. But they are. Because of her.

When the team got back to the tower, Superboy carried Wally in and the emergency medical staff took him away immediately. Artemis stumbled to her room, face-planting down on her bed, not even bothering to remove her suit. Even though she was unspeakably exhausted not even a few minutes ago, she couldn't even close her eyes. Go figure.

Instead of wallowing in her own self pity, Artemis decided to get something to eat to distract her from her thoughts. As she made her way to the kitchen, a faint silhouette of Wally gobbling up every piece of food in his path came to mind. But the only thing she saw was an empty kitchen, and no Wally. After Artemis grabbed a few cookies, her appetite suddenly vanished as she looked at the food. With a sigh, she headed back to her room.

Thoughts of "Will he be okay?" and "Does he know it's my fault?" also "Will he be the same?" all swam through Artemis's mind the whole way there. She was so deep in thought that she didn't even notice that she walked to a completely different floor, and was now in front of the door where healing patients are kept. How she even got there? She didn't know. All she knew was that she was pushing the door open before she even noticed she was.

The room was empty and all the curtains of each bed were open to show that they were empty—except one. The faint sound of constant beeping could be heard from the end of the room, which grew louder as Artemis hesitantly walked closer. When she got to the bed, she opened the curtain and peeked through. Sure enough, the red head was laying in the bed with different machines hooked up to him. His heart was beating (which made Artemis sigh in relief and finally have that nagging feeling of the possibility of Wally being dead vanish) and had many wraps around his midsection.

Other than all of that, he looked peaceful. His chest rose and fell at a slow, constant pace and his face looked relaxed. His face looked even more freckled under the florescent lighting and Artemis just noticed he had a birthmark on his left cheek. She smiled. Finally relaxed (for the most part—she was still upset with herself) and sat down at the edge of the bed, and kept looking at him for a while.

Artemis didn't even know she fell asleep until she opened her eyes. Sunlight streamed through the windows (the rays were hitting her face, and she wondered if it were possible to get sunburned indoors) and Artemis turned, trying to get more comfortable. Her head was resting on two hard stick like things and her neck was really paying for that. As she lifted it to get off those sticks, she froze. Because she was laying on Wally's two shins.

 _Wally!_

She fell asleep in the patient room.

"Oh, dear God," Artemis muttered to herself, groggily—but quickly—getting up. Good think he hasn't woken up yet, because it would be really embarrassing for her to be caught here. If she made a run for it, she could escape the room and go back to hers before anyone saw her.

Getting off the bed and cracking a few bones, Artemis stumbled her way from the bed (Jesus, she slept in her boots). But she was too busy trying to haul her ass out of there she didn't even notice her bow was lying on the floor. Why? She didn't know. But what she _did_ know was that she tripped on the damn bow and was now crashing into oblivion. She wildly flailed her arms, trying to stop herself, but it was too late.

First, she crashed into the monitor. Then, the monitor fell onto the floor taking everything it was plugged into down with it. Finally, the monitor somehow rolled onto her foot (if she hadn't been wearing her boots, she would have lost a few toes) and Artemis let out a loud cry of pain before she could stop herself. And if that wasn't bad enough, Wally woke up with a start. He looked around the room, blinking dumbly, trying to figure out where the hell he was, or why the hell there was an animal yelling in his room, when he saw Artemis.

Imagine your most embarrassing, _humiliating_ experience of your life. Now take what you feel and apply it to Artemis—to the hundredth power. Not only was she embarrassed for knocking over all of those things like the klutz she is (which is funny, because she's a freaking archer and took gymnastics since she was five), but having Wally see that she stayed with him while he was unconscious. Which means he'd probably get the wrong idea, like her _caring_ about him or something preposterous like that. Please. Like she'd _ever._

"Artemis?" Wally chocked out, absolutely flabbergasted because the girl who told him she couldn't stand him twice a day, and stole his food to get on every one of his last nerves, was with him, in his room, waiting for him to wake up.

"Wally," Artemis said after composing herself. "…You're awake." Despite being embarrassed, she was both relieved and surprised he woke up so quickly. Usually when people are impaled with swords they don't even wake up, let alone in a matter of hours. But he was _okay._ Which means even though she messed up and missed, it was okay.

"Are those cookies?" Wally asked, pointing to the cookies that were crumbled up and smushed up at the end of the bed.

"You just wake up from being stabbed in the stomach, and you ask for cookies?" Yep. He was still the same Wally.

He shrugged. "I'm starving."

Rolling her eyes, Artemis handed him the cookies (that she probably sat on, but whatever) and awkwardly stood there and looked anywhere but him. _Hmm. Nice walls_ , she thought to herself.

With a large burp, Wally finished his cookies with a sigh. "Man. I could go for one hundred of those right now."

"How are you even able to eat?" Artemis asked. "Weren't you…you know…hit in the stomach?"

"Speedsters heal twenty times faster than normal people," he explained with a cocky grin. He lifted up the wraps on his mid section to show her the wound was fully closed and only left a long scar. "See?"

Artemis peered at the scar (with much more interest than concern, if you asked Wally) and nodded slowly. But he would still have that scar forever, a reminder that she _missed_ and caused that to happen. He would always remember that excruciating pain that he felt and the way the sword dug into his flesh and insides. Even though Wally was smirking, she could still see the weariness in those emerald green eyes whenever she mentioned what happened. Which she should probably stop doing.

 _I'm such a damn idiot._

"What's wrong?" Wally frowned when he noticed Artemis was now glaring at the floor.

"Nothing."

Wally raised a disbelieving brow. If there was something that she was _not_ good at, it was lying. Take it from a professional, experienced liar like himself. "Really? Then why are you looking at the floor like it just killed your best friend?"

"No I'm not…" Artemis looked up and trailed off. For some odd reason, she always had trouble lying to Wally. Maybe it was the way his eyes bored into hers like he was reading her like a book—she didn't know. But all she knew was that she was pouring out all of her thoughts to him.

"…Artemis?"

"Because! I saw that…whatever the hell it was coming after you and I _saw it_ but I was on my last arrow and I was so stupid and dumb and scared and tired that I didn't even aim correctly—but I thought I did—and I _missed._ By a few, measly little centimeters I _missed it_ and it…it shoved it sword thing into you and I watched you fall and your face…" Artemis was so damn angry with herself and so focused on speaking that she didn't even notice she was _crying_ —Jesus Christ, Artemis was _crying—_ until the tears that were traveling down her cheeks tickled and she furiously wiped them away, so angry and embarrassed with herself for not only missing, but _crying_ for goodness sakes. "And now you're gonna remember that forever because you have that stupid scar and you'll remember the pain you felt and remember that I missed and didn't stop him before he did that to you, and I'm just so _sorry_ and should have did something, or not have used all of my arrows so quickly because I'm so damn stupid."

Now, Artemis was full on blubbering. She would have rather taken on Clayface and the Poison Ivy themselves _blindfolded_ then be crying—no, _blubbering_ in front of Wally West. He must think she's so weak and girly for crying over something so stupid.

"Hey, uh…" Wally stood up and cautiously walked toward Artemis, who was looking anywhere but him. "It's okay—really. It's not your fault, it's mine, really. I mean, I was the one who was facing the dude in the first place. It's okay. Don't cry."

"I'm _not_ crying!"

The sides of Wally's mouth twitched but he nodded. "Okay, okay. You're not crying, even though there are tears covering half your face."

The look she gave him could have been threatening if she didn't have red, teary eyes and snot coming from her nose. But the weird thing was, Wally thought she looked gorgeous at that moment.

"Look," Wally continued, stepping closer. "I don't blame you, and you shouldn't blame yourself. Okay? Stuff happens, and no matter what we do, we can't stop it." His arms rose up like he was going to hug her, but they dropped back to his sides. "Why are you so hard on yourself, Artemis?" he murmured, holding her gaze. She looked up at him and shrugged. They held their gazes for a few moments before Wally suddenly stepped back.

"Gotta use the bathroom," he explained before zooming off. Artemis was going to use this time to clean her self up (because, oh my God, what did she _look_ like?) but he zoomed back in and teetered to a stop in front of her again.

"I thought you were using the bathroom?" she asked, frowning.

"I did."

"But you were gone for three seconds!"

"Speedsters have the ability to speed up their pee if they want—I figured that out myself when I was—"

"You know what? I don't even want to know." Artemis shook her head. But strangely, she felt a _lot_ better. There was some type of weight lifted off of her shoulders and she felt okay. Because she believed him when he told her that it was okay. She was the sincerity in his green eyes.

"What?" Artemis asked when she noticed he was looking at her with a doofy grin on his face. "Why are you smiling?"

"You care about me."

She choked on air and looked at him like he had three heads. " _What?_ Wally, I didn't know you were hit in your head, too."

He shook his head, grinning even wider. "Admit it, Arty—you _care_ about me."

"You know what? I think it's time for me to leave." She picked up her bow and stomped out of there. She did _not_ , in _any way,_ care about _Wally West—_ a.k.a. the bane of her existence.

"Don't worry, Artemis," Wally said, zooming over and stopping in front of her. "I care about you, too." He winked before speeding away, leaving a flush faced Artemis alone in the room. She felt the blush on her face and smiled to herself before stopping immediately. "He doesn't mean it that way," she told herself, trying to calm down her rapidly beating heart. "He doesn't, and you don't, either."

"Stop lying to yourself, Arty!" he yelled from across the hall.

Artemis's face flushed even more as she stomped out of the room. "Get out of here, Wally!"


End file.
